‘This Is Not a Normal T-shirt’ Benefits Clothing Reuse
A new collaboration between circular shoe brand Thousand Fell and Future Is Color promises to put bland graphic T-shirts to rest.
Future Is Color is the San Diego-based creative studio focused on meaningful design and conversation that is headed by creative Erwin Hines. Meanwhile, Thousand Fell is a start-up that focuses on making fully circular footwear at scale.
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Just a long-sleeved T-shirt for now, the capsule retails for $65 beginning Thursday on ThousandFell.com. With tag lines such as “This Is Not a Normal T-shirt” and “The Future Is Ours to Build,” the benefits behind the shirt aren’t as obvious.
For starters, all proceeds from the collection go toward The Or Foundation in its efforts to establish equity in the extended fashion supply chain (regarding the conversation of who is responsible for clothing recycling). At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented surge in clothing donations led to increased pileups in countries such as Ghana. This lack of responsibility by Western consumers deepens inequity, and nonprofits like The Or Foundation look to support Ghanaian business owners who are dealing with the repercussions of too much stuff.
As part of its testament toward eco-design, the collection is produced by Version Tomorrow (recognized for its material innovation by the Council of Fashion Designers of America) and full recycling capabilities through SuperCircle (another start-up founded by Chloe Songer and Stuart Ahlum, the cofounders of Thousand Fell). Since May 2022, the firm has recycled more than 600,000 garments to date.
Version Tomorrow was founded by Public School managing partner Alan Mak in June 2019. The certified basics and “blanks” platform uses a proprietary blend of recycled and organic cotton (for added end-of-life benefits) and enables creators to offer sustainable apparel in an accessible way.
